Business Capstone Project On Reputation And Online Purchase Behaviour

Background Literature

Discuss about the Business Capstone Project for Reputation and Online Purchase Behaviour.

The modern day business environment is largely dominated by the emergence of technologic advancements, where internet plays the pivotal role in grabbing the attention of retail marketers. Various studies conducted previously have significantly captured the picture that retail outlets worldwide have transcended through their infancy to gain significant potentials from the target markets through the effective integration of internet technology (Kim & Lennon, 2013). Today, billions of people globally are inclined towards shopping online due to the growth online sales, which can be attributed to the advantages of internet technologies to provide a significant amount of information promptly and economically (D’Alessandro, Girardi & Tiangsoongnern, 2012). However, a hefty portion of the world population still does not believe in online shopping, as their faith is extensively persuaded in the traditional shopping process. Hsu, Chuan-Chuan Lin, and Chiang (2013) argue that companies in a highly competitive global environment require maintaining long-term profitability via developing the ability to attract and retain customers and shaping up a loyal customer base. Therefore, a considerable number of companies are finding it difficult to understand the buying behaviours of the customers while gaining clear comprehension about the factors influencing or attracting shoppers towards the brand. Therefore, the research is intended to investigate the multiple factors and antecedents associated with the enhancing online brand presence and determining shopping behaviours.

The previous literature or theoretical backgrounds are identified or explored for developing the study with the aim of constructing hypothetical knowledge regarding the underlying dimensions associated with consumer shopping behaviours and attitudes. Apart from that, the utilisation of literature is based on examining the relationships between different factors and online shopping attitudes and perceptions (Cheung & Lee, 2012).

Kim and Krishnan (2015) have suggested that retail segment is the most vision business sector of the global economy, as the consumers worldwide are exposed to multiple alternatives from catalogues and various television shopping opportunities to internet in addition to the traditional retail stores. Therefore, the entire retail business environment is significantly categorised into two broad types, such bricks-and-mortar and online stores (Cheng & Huang, 2013). On the other hand, citing the reference obtained from Shiau and Luo (2012), different modes of retailing are designed by the retailers depending on the type of business, where these patterns significantly influence the shopping behaviours among the customers of the individual industry. Telemarketing, catalogue sales, social media marketing, sales promotion, and teleshopping are the elementary methods for advertising and promoting sales of the retail divisions. The fundamental aim of such marketing and advertisement activities designed by the retailers are solely dedicated to attracting and motivating the consumers and helping the developing a positive buying attitudes (Shiau & Luo, 2012).

Research Questions

Studies like Cantallops and Salvi (2014) and Cheng and Huang (2013) have identified that internet is commonly used for searching the key information, generating in-depth perception about the products or services, online banking, and online payments among many other important activities. The online selling infrastructure considers the growing engagement of the customers towards the online mediums for accomplishing their various transactions and fulfilling the everyday needs for expanding the growth of online business (Cantallops & Salvi, 2014). Hence, the particular process is committed to capitalising the increasing opportunities offered by the recent marketing environment.

The e-commerce or e-marketing sector has grown immensely in the past decade. Due to constant up gradation of technology majority of the people especially people belonging to younger generation prefers shopping online rather than physically visiting the shop. People finds online shopping more effective as they get detail information about the products and also gets an idea about the quality by reading its reviews. As per the recent statistics more than 3 billion people uses internet everyday this is almost equivalent to the 20% of the world’s population (Cantallops and Salvi, 2014). As stated by Shiau & Luo, (2012), UK is considered to be one of the most developed markets of online shopping in the world. More than 60% of the UK population does online shopping almost every week.

	U.K
Population	68, 789, 500
People accessing internet daily	56, 860,249

Source: (Kim & Lennon, 2013)

Based on the identified issues in online retailing environment and preliminary knowledge gaining from the review of literature, the key research questions are:

• What way reputation of a selling organization affects individual purchasing behaviour of the customers?
• What are the prime factors that influence decision-making process of the customers in online shopping process?
• What strategies and approaches can be employed by the key retailers to enhance their online brand reputation and presence in the contemporary environment?
• What suggestions can be given to the online retailers for improving their risk perception and privacy typology?

The entire research will be carried out by considering an actual and systematic procedure with the right combination of discovering, explaining, and rectifying the facts and evidence obtained through the analysis. By looking at the nature of the research topic, this study will be entirely performed by appointing a quantitative research approach only. The quantitative study is based on gaining a large amount of numerical data from the chosen population with the aim of achieving overall statistical results and characteristics in the exploratory and predictive manner (Hsu, Chuan-Chuan Lin & Chiang, 2013). The study would focus on the effective utilization of positivism research philosophy, deductive approach and descriptive design for fulfilling all the research objectives in an appropriate manner. The study would consider the mentioned process for capturing in-depth information about the purchasing behaviour of the customers. Furthermore, it would also allow the research study to analyze research hypothesis in an appropriate way.  

Research Methods

For capturing in-depth information about the research study, online survey technique would be utilized in an effective. A questionnaire will be formed for capturing effective quantitative information about the research study. 50 respondents will be selected by employing a random sampling procedure from a broad range of customers from the retail industry of USA. Moreover, the survey will be performed by developing close-ended questions and transmitted to the respondents in their e-mails for collecting adequate responses. Lastly, it is worth to mention that the close-ended questions are designed by relying on the reflections from the literature while the responses for each item are distributed on a range of five-points in the Likert scale.

In case of analysing the data obtained from the primary information, statistical tools such as SPSS will be utilised. The importance of the SPSS software is based on extracting the key facts out of the large base numerical data (Kim & Krishnan, 2015). Subsequently, a regression analysis will be carried out in the next phase of data analysis with the aim of justifying the principal relationship between the two variables, such as the factors affecting shopping behaviours and the perception of the online purchasers. In addition, tables, charts, and graphs will be designed and formed for ensuring the suitable presentation of data and supporting the smooth identification of research findings.

Conclusion

From the use of overall data collection techniques and analytical procedures, it can be estimated that reputation of online organizations are extremely crucial for influencing the behavioural pattern of the customers. In fact, decision-making of the online customers depend upon the intangibility and practicality of the company’s online presence. In addition, cultural integration to online shopping approaches may need to be maintained by considering the socio-cultural trends of the particular economy (D’Alessandro, Girardi & Tiangsoongnern, 2012). With the combination of the proposed findings, it is expected that suitable suggestions for future research will be proposed for enhancing the professional knowledge and technical abilities of the retailers regarding the improvement online business activities.

References

Cantallops, A. S., & Salvi, F. (2014). New consumer behavior: A review of research on eWOM and hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, 41-51.

Cheng, H. H., & Huang, S. W. (2013). Exploring antecedents and consequence of online group-buying intention: An extended perspective on theory of planned behavior. International Journal of Information Management, 33(1), 185-198.

Cheung, C. M., & Lee, M. K. (2012). What drives consumers to spread electronic word of mouth in online consumer-opinion platforms. Decision support systems, 53(1), 218-225.

D’Alessandro, S., Girardi, A., & Tiangsoongnern, L. (2012). Perceived risk and trust as antecedents of online purchasing behavior in the USA gemstone industry. Asia pacific journal of marketing and logistics, 24(3), 433-460.

Hsu, C. L., Chuan-Chuan Lin, J., & Chiang, H. S. (2013). The effects of blogger recommendations on customers’ online shopping intentions. Internet Research, 23(1), 69-88.

Kim, J., & Lennon, S. J. (2013). Effects of reputation and website quality on online consumers’ emotion, perceived risk and purchase intention: Based on the stimulus-organism-response model. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 7(1), 33-56.

Kim, Y., & Krishnan, R. (2015). On product-level uncertainty and online purchase behavior: An empirical analysis. Management Science, 61(10), 2449-2467.

Shiau, W. L., & Luo, M. M. (2012). Factors affecting online group buying intention and satisfaction: A social exchange theory perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2431-2444.